


July 1, 198_

by zulu



Category: House M.D., Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 08-07, Crossover, First Lines Challenge, M/M, for:deelaundry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-03
Updated: 2008-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canada is boring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	July 1, 198_

**Author's Note:**

> Part of thedeadparrot's Mathletes 'verse.

**July 1, 198_**

"Canada is boring."

"Mmhm," Rodney says, not listening (really, genius at work, he can't be expected to actually take in, consider, and formulate a response to everything everybody says to him (which isn't a lot, if they're Tami Hutchinson, for instance, but which is more than enough, if they're his parents yelling or Jeannie complaining or his English teacher sighing in despair over his 'creative writing', which, okay, turned into a diatribe on how wrong, wrong, _wrong_ traditional physics is, and how he is going to tell them so and grow up to win the Nobel Prize; but nobody _said_ the short story shouldn't have footnotes or an accurate bibliography, so really, it's her fault for sloppy grading rubrics (and the real problem, Rodney thinks--about listening, that is--is the nested parentheses he gets into when he's busy _thinking_.))) "Wait. What?"

"Canada," House repeats, rolling his eyes, "is _boring_."

Rodney blinks and looks up from the scribbling he's been doing to correct their out-of-date science textbook. He plans to send it back to the manufacturer so that next year's grade twelves don't have to _suffer_ as he did from misinformation. He can, however, reorient, when House launches an unprovoked attack on his nation's sovereignty. "No, it's not."

House is leaning against a tree and poking a stick into an anthill, watching the soldier-ants scurry each time he digs a new hole into the foundation of their universe. He's wearing a plain white t-shirt, the back brushed with dirt and grass stains from, uh...earlier, and shorts that show off that, yeah, even a nerd can have really nice, muscley legs. Not that Rodney noticed, at all. "Yes, it _is_," he says, his voice laced with more sarcasm than even Rodney can work up on a good day. "It's _Canada Day_, and _nobody's_ getting drunk and drowning in their own kiddie-pool or shooting fireworks into their faces or exploding their barbeques with lighter fluid or _anything_. You call this a celebration?"

Rodney frowns. Admittedly, all his mom said was "Go play outside, for once, Meredith, _honestly_." Later his dad might make them sing the anthem along with the television when the Stamps-TiCats game starts. Football, ugh. "The ice cream truck came by," he says, which is so, so lame, but it _did_, and for once they weren't out of triple-fudge bars and he actually had some allowance left to buy one. Except House stole the last bite, and of course Rodney had to get him back for that, and then House said that he knew how chocolate tasted better anyway, and kissed him, and that led to, um. Earlier.

"Anyway," he says, before House can mock him for the ice-cream truck comment, "Canada so _isn't_ boring, for _you_."

House squints at him suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"_You_ have a secret boyfriend," Rodney points out. "Which we aren't telling anybody, and which, you know, we do--" He blushes like an idiot, but he finishes his point admirably with a very lewd sort of handwave. "So yeah. If that's so boring, why are you still even here? Why don't you go back to Egypt? Because you were getting so lucky _there_."

House's face sort of does this thing, when he gets upset, where all of a sudden he doesn't have any expression at all. Rodney wonders frantically what he said that must have been really really wrong and stupid. And how to take it back. He glares down at his textbook and suddenly that seems stupid too, because of course the textbook publishers aren't going to listen to him, just like the CIA _refused to_, even though the bomb wasn't a working model anyway.

House shoves the stick into the anthill and wraps his arms around his grubby, knobby knees (Rodney really doesn't like his legs _that_ much), and then he mutters, "_You're_ not boring."

"Oh," Rodney says. And grins. Probably he looks really dumb, because House smirks at him, and kind of waggles his eyebrows. "Yeah, well. You too," he says, and then House pushes him over before he can make the whole thing worse, and kisses him again.

This time, Rodney's the one who ends up with grass stains all over his back, but at least he'll be able to tell his mom that he had fun playing outside.

 

_end_


End file.
